Through demands for boycotts and endless petitions, Everytown for Gun Safety has been attempting to blackmail the Kroger Company into changing its policies on the open carrying of firearms in its stores.
Kroger's policies have a rational basis. Kroger employees are forbidden to carry weapons at work or to have them on company premises. Furthermore, Kroger employees are trained not to confront or resist armed individuals: this includes those who would rob the store as well as those who are simply shopping while armed. Employees that choose to confront or resist can be (and usually are) fired on the spot.
Kroger did not adopt these policies to appease the NRA or to kowtow to the Open Carry groups. The policies have been in place for decades.
Kroger Company operates more than 3,000 retail stores with the same policies. The total number of open carry demonstrations in Kroger stores have involved a tiny fraction of those stores on a very small number of occasions. Yet Everytown wants us to think that shoppers will see someone toting a gun every time we shop there.
Tell Everytown it's time to stop manufacturing groundless hysteria and time to accept that Kroger's policies have been successful for many years. No Kroger shopper or Kroger employee has ever been assaulted, wounded or killed by a person who was simply openly carrying a firearm in a Kroger store.
